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Rewatching The X-Files

Thanks to Netflix, binge re-watching old TV shows are a cinch! Forget your friends and family because in the next 12 (36, 48, 72) hours, you’ll be completely immersed in the world of 1990’s alien conspiracies.

I decided to rewatch The X-Files because I was SO scared of this show when I was a kid that the theme song still gives me the heeby jeebies. Now that I’m older (and wiser, I hope), I realize that some episodes aren’t scary at all and some are downright ridiculous.

For example, episode 14 in season 1 features sexy, murderous Amish aliens who can change genders. Crop circle ensues.

But I do have a newfound appreciation for this show. Here’s why:

X-Files was scary before TV was scary. It’s pretty remarkable to think that The X-Files was a precursor to other creepy, spine-tingling tv shows that left you hanging after every episode – like Walking Dead and Lost. And they did it with some pretty primitive special effects.

It took the Twin Peaks formula and made it better. It was ahead of the times but it also took a tried and tested formula of suspense + camp – and made it more interesting and binge-watchable. David Duchovny now available not in drag.

It didn’t shy away from science. The X-Files showed off 90’s computers in all its glory – green and black screens and all. Scully was often in the autopsy room talking into a recorder CSI-styles. There was no dumbing it down for audiences. Mulder and Scully weren’t afraid to be smarter than you.

Skeptic Scully and Spooky Mulder have chemistry. This was lost on me as a kid but now I see that these two fell in love at first sight of UFO. I want to believe.

But then again, I was seven years old when the show started, so what do I know?